Librarian

Staging Your Comeback: A Complete Beauty Revival for Women over 45 by Christopher Hopkins

At first glance, this wouldn’t seem like a book to support my healthy lifestyle, but, let’s face it, looking good is one of the tried-and-true reasons for losing weight. I believe that one of the reasons that I’m succesfully losing weight this time is because “improving my appearance” is not in my top ten list of advantages to losing weight. However, it is number 11. And on any given day, I never know what is going to motivate me. There are moments when “improving my appearance” is the primary reason that I’m willing to pick up dumb bells for an arms routine or eat lunch at home instead of going out.

I’m quite clueless about most of the issues covered in this book—how to choose clothes that look good on me, how to obtain and maintain an attractive hairstyle, how to wear makeup that enhances my look without overpowering it. Not all the answers are found in the book, of course, but it got me started on an interesting path. I have an appointment next week for a free consultation with a curly hair specialist. I’ve requested several more books from the library. And I have a plan to improve my appearance over the next several months, starting with hair and skin care and ending with clothes, since clothes are always problematic when losing weight (how much am I willing to spend on items that I may own for less than a year?).

2 days
4 scenes
4600 words

Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss—and the Myths and Realities of Dieting by Gina Kolata

I read this book in a day—which is a good indication of high quality writing.

The structure follows a study that compares Atkins to a low calorie diet over a 2 year period. But within that structure, Kolata gives us a history of dieting (all the advice we get now was invented in the 19th and early 20th century—including low-carb and calorie counting), the history of the ideal body image (it keeps getting thinner), and the history of obesity research (it’s all in the genes).

It’s actually a bit depressing to read this book at this stage when I’m losing weight and having thoughts like “I think I’ve got it this time. I really believe this time I have all the tools I need to lose the weight and keep it off permanently.” I’m probably wrong about that. According to the studies in this book, the best I can realistically hope for is to lose, maybe, 30 pounds. Or less, maybe I should be happy to lose and keep off 10% of my starting weight.

She quotes studies that don’t get much coverage now that the healthiest weight range for long life appears to be what we call “overweight,” not what we call “normal.” And she posits a theory that maybe we are heavier now for the same reason that we are taller. Our genes dictate our maximum height, but we only get there if we are properly fed as youngsters. Weight genes may work much the same way. I’m a good six to eight inches taller than my grandmothers, maybe it makes sense that I’m also at the hefty end of the scale.

Maybe it’s because I’ve read so many books recently that take on the food industry and our current eating enviroment, but I was not entirely convinced by her attitude about that. Apparently, there aren’t studies that show cause and effect. But, I see cause and effect in my own experience. Eating what passes as a normal American diet makes me fatter than eating more like my grandparents. On the other hand, this book makes me feel better about the fact that cutting out the highly-processed foods has not resulted in the dramatic weight loss that I had hoped for and expected. It doesn’t work like that.

This book isn’t going to make me stop my current approaches to a healthier lifestyle, but I think I may try to be gentler with myself about where it takes me. What if I only lose 30 pounds? Or 40? Instead of putting it all back on in disgust like I did the last time, I’ll see if I can maintain at that weight. I will have done better than the participants in the 2-year study—they generally lost about 10% of their weight in the first six months, regardless of diet, and the best results consisted of maintaining that loss since many participants re-gained at least some of that weight.